This week I got my first westbound M-3 front-window ride in a year or so and I was impressed with how Harold Interlocking is progressing. Many new signal bridges and gantries are in place, some with bagged signals. Some new color-light signals in operation. And some crossovers have been relocated and the new westbound is signaled for limited-speed unlike the old one which was medium-speed. 45 mph is better than 30 mph.

The crossover from Mainline-3 to Tunnel Line-4 has been relocated from the east end of the interlocking to the west end just before the Line-4 portal. And the one from Tunnel Line-3 to Mainline-4 is now at the east end of the complex just the before the Woodside curve.

With a little luck I'll get a couple of more M-3 front-window rides by the time the Harold rebuilding is complete and see the final results and all the new signals before the M-9's arrive and abolish head-end viewing on the LIRR forever.

The M9 will be the end of an era in which we are entertained watching the tracks go under or come out the back. It just bites, my childhood shot down in flames. We'll have to rely on trackside photos of the progress. Even talking to the engineer is going to be a thing of the past.

Workers have been down in Harold for years doing known work as per progress reports on the MTA website. It will be a long time before the project is completed.

M9's will likely take awhile to come in and there will be plenty of time to use the M3's which will be in service for quite awhile which willl still likely supplement the M9's.

The LIRR rolling stock will see M3, M7, M9, C3 and MARC II. As MTA needs more cars which is why they are leasing the MARC II, it seens more than likely M3 will be needed for additional capacity and will not be phased out for an extremely long time considering the MARC II is also an older trainset. They likely will need more M9 options or another new rail car altogether.

Harold is 2 different projects,one is a Congestion relief project between LIRR and Amtrak,the other is part of ESA,as Harold is thejunction point from the mainline to the ESA tunnels to GCT.Harold is part of PSCC,and controlled by a joint Amtrak/LIRR operations crew/staff.

The area is in a state of flux as both Amtrak and LIRR have crews doing certain parts of the project,Amtrak is doing most of thesignal work including wiring of the signal huts(CIL's) and moving cat poles/wire as needed.LIRR is running the warehouse of stored materials for both projects and moves the 3rd rail as needed after track relocationwork is done by both crews/contractors

adamj023 wrote:Workers have been down in Harold for years doing known work as per progress reports on the MTA website. It will be a long time before the project is completed.

M9's will likely take awhile to come in and there will be plenty of time to use the M3's which will be in service for quite awhile which willl still likely supplement the M9's.

The LIRR rolling stock will see M3, M7, M9, C3 and MARC II. As MTA needs more cars which is why they are leasing the MARC II, it seens more than likely M3 will be needed for additional capacity and will not be phased out for an extremely long time considering the MARC II is also an older trainset. They likely will need more M9 options or another new rail car altogether.

Six months after the M9 goes into regular service, you'll start seeing the M3s disappear. The MARC cars have no bearing on it, as they're being leased for a shortage of Diesel equipment. Sad to see the M3s go, but going they are.